One Blue Marble for Courtney Desiree Morris, following her performance of “Litanies,” a ritual reading for Audre Lorde, held on Thursday, October 17, 2024 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Lorde delivering her first poetry reading at the Women's Building in the fall of 1974.

A collaboration between Morris and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Litanies” was the third installation in the Readings, a series of live ritual performance readings of the work of black literary ancestors of the African Diaspora (with prior readings celebrating Toni Morrison and bell hooks). 

Acting as a choir director, Morris invites the readers to perform as a polyphonic choir to create sound, music, and movement through an embodied engagement with the text. The public is invited to bear witness through listening, stillness, and call-and-response.

“For those of us who live at the shoreline...”

“A Litany for Survival” by Audre Lorde